- posted on Tue Feb 05 13:18:47 EST 2008
My schedule resulted in a nearly month-long hiatus from go for me.
Annoying though it was, apparently it did my go some good - I'm now a weak 3k as opposed to an average 4k by KGS's standards. I think my time off let me break out of some bad habits I'd developed.
On the plus side, a go club is looking more likely by the week. Woohoo!
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- posted on Mon Aug 06 15:13:45 EDT 2007
Apparenty, I'm an admin over at KGS. And I didn't even know it, either! */sarcasm*
Seriously, though... Two users thought I was an admin today. Err, whiskey tango foxtrot? No silver star. No gold star. No star at all.
Flattered as I am by the idea... um.
I am not an admin. I don't want to be an admin. I want nothing to do with anything even remotely related to the idea of me being an admin.
I hope this doesn't become a self-fufilling prophecy. The last thing I want is to be saddled with responsibilities. :p
Besides, it says that admins are chosen among "mature users known to help other users and newbies on the server".
...
Whatever gave them the idea that I'm mature?
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- posted on Wed Aug 01 16:08:18 EDT 2007
My game is strange lately. I'll have a winning streak, of five or ten games or so. Then I'll have a losing streak of similar length.
I must be figuring something out, something that clicks about half the time and fails the other half.
Because half the time, I feel underranked. The other half, I feel woefully overranked.
Oh well.
Also, as proof my counting needs work: I won a game I thought I was losing today, by the margin I thought I was going to lose by. I thought, "Hmm, I feel about 10 points behind. I'll probably lose this one." but since we were already into yose, I finished. Turns out that I won by 10.5.
I blame the fact that I was playing very territory-oriented for some reason, and I tend to be biased towards influence. I was behind in influence for most of the game, but made a bunch of nice reductions in yose. Probably why I felt behind. I've been playing more territory-oriented than usual a lot lately. Strange. Maybe my style is changing.
Not a bad thing. Usually, when I go through a big style change, my strength gains a stone or two once I get used to it. Maybe my winning/losing streaks are "Territory oriented is working for me" phases and "I'm playing territory-oriented strategy with influence-oriented techniques, so my game's getting out of sync" phases.
I won't try to fight this change. If my style is changing, there's a reason for it, even if I don't consciously know why. Fighting it would mean going against whatever works for me... which could only be a bad thing, right?
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- posted on Thu Jul 19 20:28:32 EDT 2007
Beat a nidan today. With 6 stones.
Was honestly thinking of declining the challenge, but just before I did, I thought, "If I don't get over this, I'm never going to advance past the kyu ranks. I want to get strong, so I have to play strong players." So I clicked okay.
To turn the novel into a short story, we wound up in a complicated fight, and the nidan must have forgot he was in atari, because he didn't connect. So I captured. Game over. Though I was ahead by quite a bit, anyway, about halfway through yose. The only way for me to lose the game would have been to make some huge blunder and kill a group of my own.
I'm proud, not of the win (though that feels nice, too, I'll admit) but because I now know I can go into a game with the feeling of, "Well, the best I can do is put up a good fight" and still play a good game.
And I did play flukeishly well.
I may yet break the 4k barrier this month, if I keep playing like that. Oh, I hope I do. I was so much better that game than I normally am. If I can make that sort of play consistent... that would be wonderful. :)
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- posted on Sun Jul 08 18:18:23 EDT 2007
Won my first game against a shodan. With a 5-stone handicap, but still!
This did a major blow to my all-consuming terror of dan-level players. Dan players can misread! Of course, I knew this before, but this was the first time I saw it in action in a game I was playing.
This is a good thing. I can't get stronger if I go into every game against a stronger opponent certain that I'm going to get a thrashing. I need to go in with the attitude that even if I do get a thrashing, I'll put up a good fight beforehand.
I also need to play people in real life. I plan to go to med school in Halifax, but until then... I need to build things up here.
Maybe I'll get lucky, and in a few years I"ll happen upon a club with a huge number of strong players who are only too happy to give a weak 5k a thrashing followed by a review to help me whip my game into shape while removing my fear of being utterly humiliated on the board... :p
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- posted on Tue May 29 21:57:17 EDT 2007
Took a break for a while. Needed one. Am now back, and feeling more balanced.
Seem to have gained strength while on my break, as evidenced by the fact that I played two 3k players to within 2 points (though I did lose both games). Before I left, they probably would have slaughtered me.
I'll try not to let myself get an inflated head over this.
Now I need to go to bed. It's late.
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Slump beat, yes! - posted on Fri Apr 06 10:24:10 EDT 2007
Whee!
I went from losing about 2/3 of my games to winning 8/10 of them! Yaaay!
Of course, whatever caused the slump is still there, lurking, as evidenced by the way I felt in the games I lost - exactly the same way as I felt in the lost games back when I was losing 2/3 of them or more. So... yeah. I guess I've just managed to have something else that was holding me back click, but this problem is still here and needs to be addressed.
If I play a game worth bugging people to help me analyze it, I'll post it up. Maybe the second-last game I played would be worth putting up. I'll go and look over it again before I decide.
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New here. - posted on Sat Mar 31 20:55:32 EDT 2007
So, I was directed here by someone on the Lj community go. On Lj, I'm nscangal, but this is the sn I use at KGS, so I figured I'd carry it over here.
So, uh. Hi.
Maybe I'll use this as a go blog so I'll stop bugging people on my Lj when I spend every single entry for a week talking about go. XD
At any rate, if anyone has any suggestions on how to break out of a plateau, I'd love to here them. I've been stuck since November, and if possible, I think my go is actually getting worse. It's really quite aggravating. Especially when I lose a won game by not realizing a group was in atari, like I did yesterday. Argh. >.<
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